Ingredients

Method

As you prepare the citrus fruit, save all the juices, tipping them into a heavy bottomed pan you are going to make the syrup in.

Slice the tops and bottoms off 3 oranges and both grapefruit. Work a sharp knife from the top to the bottom of each, removing the peel and white pith together in strips until you have the naked fruit. Trim off all the pity bits.

Slice the oranges into circles and throw them into the serving bowl.

Cut the grapefruit into segments between the membranes and add them to the bowl. Squeeze the remains of the grapefruit over the pan to extract all the juice. Halve and pit the dates and add them to the citrus fruit.

Extract the juice from the remaining orange and add it to the pan. Similarly, squeeze and add the juice from half of the pomegranate; this is difficult but not impossible. Add the bay leaves and sugar to the pan, bring slowly to the boil to dissolve the sugar and bubble for a few minutes until you have a syrupy consistency.

At this point, throw in the pistachio nuts, cover the pan with a lid and leave to cool until warm. The bay will continue to infuse and scent the syrup.

Disgorge the seeds from the remaining pomegranate half into the fruit salad. Pour the warm syrup over the fruit salad, including the bay, which looks pretty but is their purely for decoration.

Cover the fruit salad and put it in the fridge until just before serving. You may like cream or crème fraiche with it, but I love the purity and the flavour on it’s own. The syrup really is the colour of sunset.